Schedule the remaining work on a task

If a task is underway and you learn it is going to take more or less work than originally planned, you can adjust the remaining work on the task.

What do you want to do?

Change the amount of remaining work

Adjust the remaining work day-by-day

Reassign remaining work

Change the amount of remaining work

Adjust the overall amount of remaining work if total work is what matters most and you can accept the effects on other schedule factors. For example, if increasing the total remaining work does not cause a resource to become overallocated, you might want to use this method.

1. On the View menu, click Gantt Chart.

2. On the View menu, point to Table, and then click Work.

3. In the Remaining field, for the task you want to modify, type the new amount of remaining work.

   The recalculated values for work and percent work complete appear in the Work and % W. Comp. (Percent Work Complete) fields. Press TAB to move to the field if it is not visible.

Note: When you adjust the remaining work for a task, Project calculates the work and percent work complete using actual work values according to the formulas Work = Remaining Work + Actual Work and Percent Work Complete = Actual Work / Work.

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Adjust the remaining work day-by-day

Adjust the remaining work day-by-day to contour the remaining work to meet schedule requirements. For example, suppose that increasing the remaining work adds two days to a task and causes a resource to become overallocated on the second day. You might avoid the overallocation by adding more work to the first day.

Tip: You can also adjust the remaining work on other levels of granularity, such as week-by-week or month-by-month. Instead of selecting Days in the following procedure, select the unit of time for which you want to adjust remaining work.

1. On the View menu, click Task Usage.

2. On the Format menu, click Timescale, and then click one of the tabs: Top tier, Middle tier, or Bottom tier. In the Units box, click Days, and then click OK.

   If the Task Usage view is already configured to display days, skip this step.

3. On the Format menu, point to Details, and then click Work.

   Note: If Work is already selected, do not click it again, or you will hide the Work field instead of showing it.

4. In the timesheet portion of the view, in the Work field for a particular day in the future, type the new amount of remaining work for that day.

   Important: Do not change the work value on any days for which you have already entered the actual work. The new value you enter will overwrite the actual work.

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Reassign remaining work

Use this procedure if you want to control which of several resources does what portion of the remaining work, you want to specify exactly when the remaining work will be done, or you adjusted the remaining work and it resulted in unacceptable schedule changes.

1. On the View menu, click Task Usage.

2. Click the task for which you are reassigning remaining work.

3. On the Tools menu, click Assign Resources.

4. In the grid, click the resource to which you are reassigning the work, and then click Assign.

5. Click Close when you have finished identifying the resources to which you are reassigning work.

6. If the timephased grid on the Task Usage view does not show the Work field, you must show it. On the Format menu, point to Details, and then click Work.

   Note: If Work is already selected, do not click it again or you will hide the Work field instead of showing it.

7. In the timephased grid on the Task Usage view, remove the remaining work values from the Work field in the grid for the currently assigned resource, and then type the values in the Work field in the grid for the new resource.

   Note: If you have already entered an actual work value for a day, do not change the remaining work value for the same day unless you want to change the actual work value.

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